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Business Girls
© John Betjeman
From the geyser ventilators
Autumn winds are blowing down
On a thousand business women
Having baths in Camden Town
Your Dad Did What?
© Sophie Hannah
Where they have been, if they have been away,
or what they've done at home, if they have not -
you make them write about the holiday.
One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what?
Rondeau Redoublé
© Sophie Hannah
I know the rules and hear myself agree
Not to invest beyond this one night stand.
I know your patter: in, out, like the sea.
The sharp north wind must blow away the sand.
Occupational Hazard
© Sophie Hannah
He has slept with accountants and brokers,
With a cowgirl (well, someone from Healds).
He has slept with non-smokers and smokers
In commercial and cultural fields.
Prayer
© Jorie Graham
Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
infolding,
Elegy II: The Anagram
© John Donne
Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she
Hath all things whereby others beautious be,
For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,
Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet,
Elegy III: Change
© John Donne
Although thy hand and faith, and good works too,
Have sealed thy love which nothing should undo,
Yea though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirm thy love; yet much, much I fear thee.
Holy Sonnet XIX: Oh, To Vex Me, Contraries Meet In One
© John Donne
Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
Elegy XVI: On His Mistress
© John Donne
By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Elegy XVIII: Love's Progress
© John Donne
Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick
The Ecstasy
© John Donne
Where, like a pillow on a bed
A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Woman's Constancy
© John Donne
Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?
Or say that now
Peach Blossom Journey
© Wang Wei
Fishing boat pursue water love hill spring
Both banks peach blossom arrive ancient river crossing
Travel look red tree not know far
Travel furthest blue stream not see people
A Song of an Autumn Night.
© Wang Wei
Under the crescent moon a light autumn dew
Has chilled the robe she will not change --
And she touches a silver lute all night,
Afraid to go back to her empty room.
Cloris Charmes Dissolved by EUDORA.
© Anne Killigrew
For there's no Light,
But all is Night,
And Darkness that you meet.
Emblems of Love
© Lascelles Abercrombie
And mine is all like one rapt faculty,
As it were listening to the love in thee,
My whole mortality trembling to take
Thy body like heard singing of thy spirit.
Ii
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
But only three in all God's universe
Have heard this word thou hast said,--Himself, beside
Thee speaking, and me listening ! and replied
One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse
Rosalind's Scroll
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I have pray'd for thee with bursting sob
When passion's course was free;
I have pray'd for thee with silent lips
In the anguish none could see;
They whisper'd oft, 'She sleepeth soft'--
But I only pray'd for thee.
The Deserted Garden
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.
